engine numbers

[Doug McDonnell]

OK I was looking up a car on BAT in the vinDb and noticed that there are engines with 8 digits starting with 50 before the engine range that is published in 356a.com. Engine in the Db that I was looking at is 50700568. Are there indeed engines with 8 digits stamped on the 3rd piece? https://porsche356registry.org/chassis? ... mit=Search Thanks Doug

[Al Cole]

At the end of T6B production, Porsche ran out of engines. They had already begun producing C and SC engines and assigning numbers to those engines. To remedy the problem, they stamped a 0 on the engines that they made for the end of the T6B's. Jump to present day...computers ignore the 0 and confuse the late '63 engine numbers with 1960 engine numbers. Eric solved this issue by requiring a 5 to be placed in front of the leading 0. An example is currently on ebay. The black car offered for $69999 has a HCP S90 engine that the number starts with 0800xxx. If you search the database, it will show it as a 1960 engine. If you search 50800xxx it will show up correctly as a 1963 engine. I hope this helps.

AL

[Doug McDonnell]

Thanks Al Great explanation.

[Mike Wilson]

Per the Kardex on my '63 coupe, the original engine (stolen c. 1973) was 0700772.

Mike